Page 72 of Highland Storm

“I-I don’t know,” Lianae said, and only then did she realize the girl’s eyes had yet to focus on her face. Because she couldn’t see. Further proof came when she produced a crude stick from behind the door and began to tap it on the floor in front of her. “I beg pardon,” the girl said brokenly, and the words came out as though on the verge of tears. “I came for a change of clothes.”

Lianae bolted from her chair, discarding the purse upon the table. “Let me help you,” she said, rushing to the girl’s aide. “You ought not be alone!” Lianae chided, but it was the wrong thing to say, for the sweet lass folded to her knees and began to weep there upon the floor.

“I wanted to be a good wife,” she cried, and Lianae stooped beside her.

She rubbed a hand on the girl’s back, trying in vain to soothe her. “Now, now,” she crooned. “’Twill be alright…”

Her name was Constance. But Lianae hadn’t time to consider the fantastic story she had told, for no sooner had she returned the child bride to her husband, freshly dressed in a new gown, and calmer for the talk they’d shared, when Keane came to bid Lianae good-bye. He kissed her sweetly and with an aching heart, Lianae followed him to the hillside where five hundred mounted warriors waited for the king’s command to go.

Already, David mac Mhaoil Chaluim had placed himself at the head of the cavalcade, his gold and red banners the only splash of color against a bleak and grey sky. Silver mail and long swords winked along the hillside as a few men scrambled to gather their belongings and ready mounts.

Desperate to prolong the final moments, Lianae clung to Keane even after he was mounted, loathe to see him go.

She was terrified she would never see him again. There was so much she wished to say, but with so many ears around to overhear, she held her tongue. Resting her cheek against her husband’s thigh, he reached down to lift Lianae’s face by the chin. “Dinna worry. Lael will see you safely home, and I will join anon.”

“Promise me!” Lianae begged.

He slid his gloved hand across the pate of her head, gently cradling the back of her head. “Lianae, my sister is as capable as any man, and once you have arrived at Dunràth ye will have the king’s writ. Dinna fear, my love.”

My love…

They were the sweetest words Lianae had ever heard. But it was happening all too quickly. Voices screamed inside her head. She couldn’t bear for him to leave now. She wanted to plead with him to stay but the insistent sound of a horn blast held her tongue.

“Keane,” she cried softly, grasping at his hand. His green eyes compelled her to speak now, or forever hold her tongue, but the words caught in the back of Lianae’s throat. Confused by her own emotions, she stared up into her husband’s twinkling eyes.

And then all too swiftly, her chance was passed. A runner bore down the hillside from the front line. “We ride!” he shouted. “Fall in line! Fall in line!”

Reluctantly—she could spy it in his eyes—Keane peeled Lianae’s fingers from his hand, and then he spurred his mount, turning his back to her and taking up the rear of David’s cavalcade. Lianae felt the separation as acutely as though they’d rent her arm. With her throat too thick to speak, she watched him leave, and once the troops had filed out, the vale appeared a desolate place, the hillside ravaged and trodden, with burnt spots along the tattered snow. The air itself smelled scorched.

Keane looked back only once to give Lianae a short wave, and then never again. She had no inkling how long she stood thereafter, but she could no longer see the king’s troops by the time Lael came to drag her away to begin the task of packing their own saddles for the journey north. With a heavy heart, she allowed Lael to lead the away.

Most of Lianae’s belongings—what little she had to her name—had been sent ahead to Dunràth, straight from Keppenach. She’d brought little in her saddlebags, save for a change of clothes and a purse full of stones. Everything she had had in her life before Keane was lost now—forfeit to her brother Lulach and his wife. She would start again, raised from the ashes of her past.

In the end, Lianae decided against giving any of her charm stones to Constance since the poor girl could not even see them to appreciate them. Later, when she had the opportunity, she would sew Constance a brand new dress. And mayhap, she would find someone to fashion the girl a staff, so she could more easily find her way about.

In the meantime, a simple thank you would have to suffice. All too often, life wasn’t fair. But then again, Lianae herself was no stranger to this truth. At twenty-three, she’d had more than her share of trials and loss. And yet, if she’d thought herself hardened by her circumstances, she was ill-prepared for the dún Scoti sisters, who, judging by their dress, were far more hardened by life than Lianae could ever think to be.

Painted in woad, similar to the markings Keane had worn, they came dressed as seasoned warriors, like Boudicca, the queen of the long-ago Iceni tribe. For all her gentleness while at Keppenach, today Lael was transformed, equipped like the fiercest of warriors, covered in leather, fur and blades from her head to the tips of her toes. She wore woad across her cheeks and forehead, and her rich, black hair was bound in braids, so that, in the event of a battle, her long silky tresses would not interfere. She’d traded her silk gowns for leather, and her knives were all bound with skins, which she explained, kept the cold from icing them to her fingers and hid the glint of metal from the enemy. Unlike the English, who donned silver-coifs and twinkling mail, a true Scots understood intuitively that to survive the Mounth, a man—or woman as the case may be—must be at one with the land. The sight of Lael gave Lianae a private smile, and she wished for a moment that she might be so brave.

If only she and all the women of Moray had banded together with the men… they might have been ten thousand strong. But, “Women dinna lead armies!” her brother Graeme had said one day, when he’d caught Lianae admiring her father’s sword. “’Tis naught but fantasy, Lianae! Like the raising of the corries, and ye dinna believe Cailleach dropped them stone by stone?”

“Aye, but it could be so!” Lianae had argued.

And her mother’s gentle voice came back to remind her: There are more things unknown under the heavens than men can suppose, Lianae. Anything is possible—anything.

Including the love of a husband for a wife he’d never mean to have.

Lianae must endeavor to believe it.

From Dubhtolargg, they would have but sixty miles to travel as crows flew, but over mountainous terrain, with thick forests and swift, foaming burns. This far north, there would be no inns or alehouses to be encountered, and no one anticipated the comforts of a bed along the way. At least this time Lianae had a horse and a good pair of shoes.

Altogether they were six riders, the women atop snow-white mares that were born to the terrain. Sleek and sturdy, Lael extolled their virtues. Unlike the destriers the Normans rode, with blood lust in their eyes, they kept their wits while in battle. Lianae prayed she would never bear witness to that fact. And despite Lael’s boast that she needed only one man to join them, Aidan insisted Lachlann join the party as well. Not only would it ease his mind to have his trusted captain along to protect his sisters, on the return journey, Luc could return straight to Keppenach along with Lael, and Sorcha and Cailin would have Lachlann to escort them into the Mounth.

“Keep to the shadows along the crags,” Aidan advised, constraining Lael’s mount by the bridle. He cast a meaningful glance toward Lachlann. “Avoid the auld road, keep to the woodlands ’til you are well north o’ the Spey.”

Lael grinned down at her brother. “Dinna fash yersel’, Aidan. We’ll take good care of your captain, and ye worry more for the fool who would dare impede us.”

Lianae could well believe it for Lael was frightening in the saddle.